Experts say your HEARTBEAT could be used as a password

January 20, 2017

Scientists accessed patient data with the person’s unique electrocardiograph
Method is cheaper and safer than encryption or cryptography

Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

Published:
13:23 EST, 18 January 2017

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Updated:
13:31 EST, 18 January 2017

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More than 27 million electronic healthcare records were compromised last year.

Now, researchers believe they have found a more efficient method that ensures these credentials stay protected – the patient’s own heartbeat.

The team encrypted patient data using the person’s unique electrocardiograph as the key to lock and unlock the files.

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Researchers believe they’ve find an efficient method to ensure electronic healthcare are protected – the patient’s own heartbeat. The team encrypted patient data using the person’s unique electrocardiograph as the key to lock and unlock the files

FACTS ABOUT ECG

An ECG, or electrocardiograph, records the electrical activity of the heart.

It can reveal any problems with the heart’s rhythm or beat.

Though it does not provide a complete picture of the heart’s condition, an ECG offers background information on various types of heart disease.

It can provide clues in cases of:

• Chest pain, fainting, difficulty in breathing or palpitations

• Narrowing of the arteries. This is done with an ECG before and after exercise (an exercise stress test)

• Measuring a person’s risk of heart attack.

• Monitoring the effectiveness of any coronary drugs.

• A slow or fast heart beat.

The test is painless and takes about a minute.

Up to 12 electrodes are attached to arms, legs and chest. Electrical activity is measured and appears on a paper printout.

The new method was devised by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

‘The cost and complexity of traditional encryption solutions prevent them being directly applied to telemedicine or mobile healthcare,’ said Zhanpeng Jin, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University.

‘Those systems are gradually replacing clinic-centered healthcare, and we wanted to find a unique solution to protect sensitive personal health data with something simple, available and cost-effective.’

Currently, the only methods to keep hackers from getting a hold of electronic health records are cryptography or encryption, but both can be expensive, time-consuming and computing intense.

But Jin and his colleagues were able to encrypt a person’s health data using their on electrocardiograph (ECG)–a measurement of the electrical activity of the heart measured by a biosensor attached to the skin and transforming it into a key for the files.

‘The ECG signal is one of the most important and common physiological parameters collected and analyzed to understand a patient’s’ health,’ said Jin.

‘While ECG signals are collected for clinical diagnosis and transmitted through networks to electronic health records, we strategically reused the ECG signals for the data encryption.

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‘Through this strategy, the security and privacy can be enhanced while minimum cost will be added.’

Essentially, the patient’s heartbeat is the password to access their electronic health records.

‘This research will be very helpful and significant for next-generation secure, personalized healthcare,’ said Jin.

A study seperate from Protenus, Inc (pictured) has revealed how many healthcare files were breached in each month in 2016. It was found that more than 27 million electronic healthcare records were compromised last year

Since an ECG may change due to age, illness or injury–or a patient may just want to change how their records are accessed–researchers are currently working out ways to incorporate those variables.

The idea of using heartbeats to unlock digital information is not a new concept.

In 2015, Halifax completed a successful trial of ‘cardiac authentication’ for its online accounts using the Nymi band.

Nymi reads the wearer’s heart rhythms, which is said to be as unique as a person’s fingerprint, to authenticate who they are.

A built-in proximity sensor can then detect where they are, and when the wearer is close to a paired device, will automatically confirm their identity and unlock the account.

In particular, the bracelet contains a HeartID sensor that measures the amount of electrical power generated by a human heart, called a cardiac rhythm tracked on an electrocardiogram, or ECG.

This ECG differs from person to person and depends on the location and size of their heart. Nymi only works with a registered person’s cardiac rhythm, meaning if the bracelet is stolen it can’t be hacked.